Weekly Lesson Notebooks

Better lesson organization is one of my main goals for the upcoming school year.  Having a high school student, middle school student and a kindergartener, I have no choice but to be more organized – or feel flustered and fall behind too often like I did last year when I was less prepared.

I have a newly organized planning notebook for myself and both of the big kids have their own weekly binder.  Besides organization, the binders are going to help the kiddos work towards more work independence and responsibility.  I’m so excited about these!

Middle and High School Binders

 

Basic Supplies

The pocket pouch holds a highlighter, pencils, erasers and a pencil sharpener.  Only the necessities for those times when they take school somewhere other than the school room.

Left: Weekly Chore Chart and Typical Daily Schedule

Right: Weekly Assignment Sheet

These pages will be the main stop daily.  The kids will make sure their daily chores have been completed and then move on to the lessons assigned.  Using the typical weekly schedule in my notebook (below), I will jot down daily assignments a week at a time.  Any reproducibles or worksheets that apply to particular lessons will be placed in the appropriate day’s pocket (again, below.)  As an assignment is completed, the kids will highlight it on the lesson plan sheet and place completed work in a pocket at the back of the binder.  At the end of the day (or week), I will grade what needs to be graded and file away the completed work.

Reading Log

We read a lot around here, but the necessary, assigned books don’t always get the attention they deserve.  The kids either lose interest and don’t finish the books, or they drag on way too long.  The reading log will help solve that problem.  Not only will the kids jot down books they read for fun, but this chart allows us to set a due date and plan out how many pages or chapters will need to be read daily to meet the due date.

Service Project Log

The service project log won’t be in the middle school binder.  I wanted Mahayla, the high schooler, to have a place to keep records of all the community service she does for the purpose of completing a transcript or portfolio as she plans for college in the next couple of years.

Grade Recording Sheet

I haven’t always kept grades, and I’m not promising I’ll go overboard this year.  However, for better accountability, I’m planning to be better about keeping a grade book.  I found this grade sheet from PrintableHomeschool.com.

Left: High School Transcript (Obviously, this won’t be in the middle school journal either.)

Right: College-Bound High School Requirements

The high school transcript and requirements sheets are simply there to keep Mahayla completely “in the know” about what she needs to accomplish and what she has already accomplished for a college-bound education.  (I use HomeschooTranscripts.com to keep track of it all.)

Daily Assignment Pockets

There are six pocket dividers in the back of the book.  One for each day of the week, and one for completed work.  As I make lessons plans for the week ahead, I’ll put in any pull-out worksheets or reproducibles that I’m able and place them in the appropriate day’s pocket.  For lessons that can’t be placed in the pockets, I’ll jot down page numbers for the kids so everyone knows exactly what work to do.  Beside their desks, each of them have a crate that houses all their textbooks and workbooks, so they will always know where to find their work.

The things we do together – like Bible, for instance – we typically do at the very beginning of school or the very end.  That way the individual work can be completed as independently as possible.  That’s the goal this year for one of my sweet children…need mom less.  I’m just sure these binders are going to help with independence (as well as organization.)

Kindergarten Accountability

Eli won’t have a binder, but we will implement a chore board and workbox for him to begin teaching him some independence and responsibility.

His chore board is simply a set of preschool chore cards (from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations) pinned to a small cork board.   I will move the day’s particular chores to the top of the board and he will move them to the bottom once completed.

His workbox is just a big ol’ crate where I will place the supplies for his school day.   We’ll explore the crate together to decide what he can do by himself and what we will work on together.  As activities are completed, papers will be put in a special Eli spot and other supplies will be put away.

Mom’s Planning Binder

Mom’s Supplies

My pocket pouch holds a few pencils and a pencil sharpener so I don’t have to search the house for supplies when it’s time to plan.

Calendar

Having an up-to-date calendar in my planning binder is of utmost importance!  It helps me know how to schedule the coming days as I take into consideration things like appointments and field trips.

Left: Official Documents

Right: Curriculum Lists

The pocket divider on the left holds official documents – a copy of my letter to the board of education and anything else I deem important.  Page protectors hold lists of each child’s curriculum (copied from my blog post.)  I use the curriculum lists as reference for myself when planning and then file them away in end-of-the-year portfolios as a record of what curriculum was used.

Chemistry Plans

Mahayla will be taking a chemistry lab on Mondays at co-op and trying to fit bookwork into T-W-Th.  To make sure we cover everything, I jotted down pages that needed to be covered daily.  We likely won’t stick to this year-at-a-glance plan perfectly, but having the lessons broken down into manageable bites will keep us on track to completion by the end of the year.

Friday Idea Lists

Fridays will be a little different than the rest of the week.  On the first Friday of the month, we’ll go somewhere for a nature walk.  The second Friday we’ll go on a field trip.  The third Friday we’ll dedicate the day to art and artist study.  And the fourth Friday we’ll head out for service projects.  So that I’m not scrambling each Friday to figure out where we’re going or what we’re doing, I’ve created some idea lists for service projects (with contact numbers/emails), field trips and nature walks.

Left: Mahayla’s Typical Weekly Assignment Plan

Right: A Stack of Mahayla’s Lesson Plan Sheets to Fill Out Weekly and Place in Her Binder

Left: Caleb’s Typical Weekly Assignment Plan

Right: A Stack of Caleb’s Lesson Plan Sheets to Fill Out Weekly and Place in His Binder

Left: Eli’s Typical Weekly Assignment Plan

Right: A Stack of Eli’s Lesson Plan Sheets to Fill Out Weekly  (I will keep this in my binder for my reference only and use it to fill up his workbox daily.)

Some of you have asked for a copy of my weekly lesson forms.  I have included one of them as a Word doc that you can edit.  It’s really nothing more than creating a table in Word and changing fonts and colors to make it pretty.

Behind the tabs, I have a section of:

Things I’ve collected about homeschooling high school in KY

Living literature book lists

Paper for jotting down notes

It feels SO good to be organized!!

Simple Machine Stations

We started our short and sweet simple machines study yesterday. As an introduction to simple machines and for self-discovery of how machines work, I set up some little centers. The kiddos had to visit each center and complete a few thought-provoking questions about what they learned. Afterward, we talked about each machine type more thoroughly and thought about when, where and how we use simple/complex machines daily.

Center #1 – Levers

• We practiced using several levers like hammers (both ends) , can openers, bottle openers, nut crackers and paint can openers.

• We also experimented with the fulcrum of a lever placed in different spots to see at which point the lever was easiest to move and how much work the lever was able to do at each point.

Center #2 – Wedges

• We had a nail with a sharp end (wedge) and a nail with a blunt end and tried hammering both to see which wedge was easier to go through the wood.

Center #3 – Inclined Plane

• Using a stack of books with string tied around them, we pulled them up a simple ramp made from a piece of scrap wood, then we pulled the stack straight up into the air.  Since we don’t own a spring scale, we tied a rubber band to the string and measured the stretch for each of the attempts to get the books to a certain level.  Upon seeing that the rubber band didn’t stretch as far when the books were pulled up the ramp, we concluded that less force was necessary using the inclined plane as compared to pulling the books straight up.  (Make sense??)

• Inclined planes were further studied as we took two screws  – one with threads very close together and one with threads far apart – and noticed how many turns it took to get each in the wood.  More turns were required for the closer threaded screw, but the job was much easier than the screw with threads far apart.

Center #4 – Wheel and Axle (along with Pulleys and Gears)

• Using the same rubber band trick as mentioned above, we determined whether or not less force was required to pull a piece of wood using wheels.
• For gears, we pulled out the gear set we have in our toy closet and closely observed how they work.
• For pulleys, we simply talked about how they work.  My children are around pulleys all the time on the farm, so they were pretty familiar with their function.  As a side note, you can find inexpensive pulleys for experiments at a tractor/farm supply store.

I had a discovery booklet made up with leading questions for each of the centers.  Since I used so many ideas and clip art from various books I have around the house, I don’t feel comfortable placing the booklet on Homeschool Share.  I will, however, plan to post the test I give at the end of the week.  I’ll let you know when it’s up.